India has an emerging corporate ecosystem that already accounts for 4% of its GDP. Companies are opened every day and steadily grow into larger establishments and maybe some old ones perish here and there. There are strategic mergers and collaborations also taking place all around and this is the root of the gargantuan revenues the corporate section of the economy has been generating over the years it has developed. But wherever there is revenue being generated taxes follow, you simply can’t earn without giving back to the economy and do tax the corporate there are regulations and laws in place.
Needless to say, these regulations need to be followed by the corporate with the utmost strictness and taxes need to be paid on time. As easy as that sounded, it is far from it. The country’s taxation laws are complex and the mere calculation of taxes on that scale takes not only a high level of skill and proficiency- it is a place where there is little room for error and small mistakes snowball into big repercussions for the company in question. So what can we do to solve this problem? Why I’m glad you asked. Whenever there is a job that requires expertise the market produces experts to fill the demand. Taxation Management is one such stream of management jobs that are tailored for handling taxes for a company.
Students that pursue a degree in taxation management, whether it is a master’s degree (MBA and M. Comm) or a post-graduate diploma, end up learning about Income, Sales, GST, VAT, Central and State Excise taxes among others and learn how to handle any mishaps that may occur regarding these.
These professionals also are taught various internal auditing methods to keep the books in check and numbers to make sense. You can never be too sure about taxes after all. The degrees are standard length and take up 4 semesters or two years of your life. The students should ideally be from commerce background but in case they’re not- they must be comfortable around numbers, statistics and analytics along with having a general understanding of economic concepts before entering this degree.
Some major colleges that offer a degree in this stream in the form of PGDM are- Symbiosis Law School, Sikkim Manipal University, Chandigarh University, etc. and the average course fees lies between one lakh to two lakh rupees. MBAs are offered by some of the same B schools but as the recent market trend dictates, distance learning courses in IGNOU, NSOU, etc. are being offered as well to maintain momentum in the careers of prospect students as these courses can be completed part-time, allowing for no hiatus in the work. The distance learning courses lack practical experience though, but balance it with more condensed course matter and lower tuition cost. The trade-off between the two is significant and should be considered carefully before making a concrete decision.
While it sounds mundane and monotonous. Taxation management jobs are versatile and include both working via a firm that lends taxation associates and taxation managers to do contract based or one-off jobs for companies and the companies themselves hiring permanent employees in the form of taxation managers. The major Taxation Management job profiles available to taxation managers are Tax Manager, Financial Controller, Tax Associate, Tax accountant, Senior Tax Advisor, Associate Tax Advisor, Tax Auditor, etc. Through various years of experience, the scale of the salary offered to these profiles varies between a meager 4 lakhs per annum for an associate to all the way up to 15-17LPA for a Senior Tax Manager.
India has plenty of consultancies and taxation firms to go around, the braver souls will try and start their own firms and that is fine as well, chartered accounting firms are known to hire tax managers in great numbers and one can land a job there or an even higher paying job in one of the companies that can keep a permanent taxation manager as an employee. With enough time spent on skill development and specialization in taxes, it is not out of bounds to expect a reasonable career progression but the stream itself is better suited for people with a commerce background from the get-go. Taxation Management as a career has good prospects in India.
